


it's still beating, this broken heart of mine

by treesofsilverleaves (Mixed_Up_Crazy)



Series: Time Is Relative [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Christmas, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Unrequited Love, barry-centric, i guess, well it's a semi hopeful ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 16:36:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2780132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mixed_Up_Crazy/pseuds/treesofsilverleaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> broken hearts aren't just the plot devices of dramatic fiction</p>
<p> ~or~ </p>
<p> the mid-season finale broke all hearts</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's still beating, this broken heart of mine

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a terrible person and the only thing I can write is angst.

Barry never really understood why they called it a broken heart.  Hearts are organs; they certainly aren't made of bones, and they're especially not made of glass like all the poets and sappy chick flicks would have you think.

(Glass isn't even organic material, and honestly, how would a glass heart beat anyway?)

Hearts are squishy.  Barry knows this; he  _is_  a forensic scientist.  They can burst or tear, they can be stabbed or squeezed or stomped on.  He's practically seen it all.  But break, though?  Just another thing to check off the list of faulty metaphors chick lit authors used to describe  _feelings_.

Then again, what else did he expect?  Life is never like the movies.

Even if sometimes he wishes it was.

(But really, he reflects, is it so hard to try for a little realism?  Just to make it believable?

The answer won't come to him until she's sitting across from him - so close and yet, now, so far - eyes wet - smiling comfortingly even as she's shaking her head - that silent death sentence of  _no, I'm sorry, no_.  Because yeah, it really is.  Realism in the movies isn't a good idea: there would be far less happy endings in the world, real or not.

And he more than anyone knows that everyone needs to be able to hold onto hope for a happy ending.)

...

Sometimes he finds the words on the tip of his tongue.   _I love you.  God, Iris, I love you so much._

...

It's almost Christmas.  Well, not  _almost_  almost, but the beginning of December is close enough.  Christmas in the West household has always been a Very Big Deal, even before he came to stay with them.  In this family, the Christmas season starts as soon as Thanksgiving dinner is over.

The atmosphere inside the house is much warmer than the frost-ridden air outside, and smells pleasantly like sugar and spice.  It's a relief when Barry feels the tip of his nose start to defrost and the chill start to vanish from his clumsy hands almost immediately.  He takes off his coat, hanging it up carefully and listening for any signs of life.  The radio is on, playing some station full of old holiday music.

_I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,_

_just like the ones I used to know..._

The soft strains of the song float in from the kitchen, and for a moment he's awash in nostalgia.  He can remember his mom singing the very same song as they decorated their tree, all together as a family.  He can remember his dad singing along, and him too.  (Although he'll be the first to admit that the Allen men were definitely not known for their singing voices.)

_Where the treetops glisten_

_and children listen to hear_

_sleigh bells in the snow..._

He can remember watching the movie with Joe and Iris that first Christmas with them.  He can remember Joe humming the song, and other carols, as he drove them to and from school.

_I'm dreaming of a white Christmas_

_with every Christmas card I write._

Iris's voice wafts in from the kitchen as well, and it's instinct to follow it.  He's been following her since they were kids, and it looks as if he's not about to stop. As if he couldn't, even if he wanted to.

_May your days be merry and bright..._

Iris sings along softly as she mixes whatever concoction is in the bowl, smiling.  She's so beautiful it should be a sin, and her happiness is so bright that it fills up his very being with light.  When she notices him standing there, she turns to him with sparkling eyes.  This kind of thing used to make his face go hot and his cheeks go very, very red, but he's been around her so long that he can fight off the ridiculous blush as soon as it begins.

"Hey, Barry!" she says, and the way she grins at him makes his heart flutter.  Her eyes are shining in excitement, and he can feel it, the emotions bubbling up in the back of his throat, the words he wishes he could just spit out---

_And may all your Christmases be white._

...

He doesn't say them; he never does, probably never will.  He's too much of a coward, too afraid to lose her.  He pretends he doesn't know that he already has.

...

"Hey, Iris," he says instead, trying not to let his voice crack on her name, and he looks away before she realizes he was staring.  Before she realizes the depth of the adoration in his eyes, the feelings that exist there only for her.  It's probably melodramatic way of putting it, but hey.  She's the one who made him watch all those chick flicks anyway.

He peers into the bowl.  "Is that Grandma Esther's cookie recipe?"

(If it's not Grandma Esther's, it's something she found online, and for some reason none of them can ever explain, non-Esther Christmas cookie recipes tend towards complete disaster.)

...

The holiday season seems to be progressing as per usual, with the slight, secret exception of him now being the Flash.  Eddie and his relationship with Iris is also an exception.  Iris has had boyfriends before, of course, but none has been near as serious as Eddie is turning out to be.  Barry ignores the flash (ha ha) of jealousy that courses through him, but it settles in his skin and makes him feel all prickly.  He can't help it.  He and Iris used to be attached at the hip, but now between her boyfriend and his hidden feelings and being the Flash he feels farther away from her than ever.

He hates keeping secrets, but he never learned how to tell them either.

Then the man in the yellow suit - the man who killed mom - the Reverse-Flash - reappears after so many years.  And it all goes to hell.

...

He should be feeling something right now.  Hopeful, maybe.  Relieved, probably.  Nervous?  Definitely.

Instead he's . . . numb.  All he can feel is the wind against his back and the chill weather washing up and down his spine.  He'd been so determined, earlier, to take his dad's advice, to finally say something.  And, okay, so maybe he didn't really think he'd get this far, didn't think he'd be standing outside the door of a house he'd lived in for fourteen years like a complete stranger.  But he is here, and he's cold and numb and wondering if he should even go inside.

He does.

...

(His big confession turns out about as well as he's ever expected - that is to say, not very well at all.  He never was an optimist when it came to her.

He's already lost too many people he loved for that kind of thing.)

...

It goes as follows:

He enters the house.  She's decorating the tree, making jokes.  But when she looks at him, really looks at him, he knows she knows something's not right.  He hugs her, because he knows that this may be the last time he'll ever get to do it without it being awkward.

(Possibly the last time he'll ever get to do it  _period_.)

He can feel the words coming again, like he has a thousand times before, but this time he doesn't choke them back.  They come out, and honestly this is the first time he's ever said it out loud - even to himself.  He feels like there should be a weight lifted off his chest, but if anything, he only feels more and more weighed down.

She doesn't get it at first, she thinks he just loves her in a friend way.  She always has been selective over what she hears, but this time he can't play along.  He can't pretend anymore he doesn't feel this way anymore.

("I couldn't lie to you anymore," he says, but even that's a lie.

He doesn't tell her he's the Flash.  Not on top of everything else he's dumping on her.  Not when it could put her in even more danger.)

The rest of the conversation - if it could really be called a conversation - he remembers in flashes.  There are tears in her eyes, and running down her face, and all he wants to do is wipe them away for her.  All he wants to do is hug her again, hold her, cradle her face in his hands.  But he's not allowed to do that.  He can see it: his guilty verdict in that one tear.

There's a smile on her face and it's really the saddest expression he's ever seen her wear.

And that's when he feels it.  The pain in his chest, sharp and burning like a dozen razor blades just let loose on his insides.  Shards of something cut into his soul, making him bleed from the inside, and it's hard to breath through the gravel in his throat and it only takes him a second to realize that this?  This is what it feels like when your heart shatters.

Maybe all the poets aren't so wrong after all.

(He wonders if she can see it in his eyes, in the minutiae of his face, in the way he's barely holding still, holding it together.  He wonders if she even cares.

Then he feels guilty for wondering.  She might not love him back, not the way he loves her, but of course she would care.  That's who she is.)

She shakes her head, and then there's really nothing he can do but leave.

He apologizes on the way out.

...

The next time he sees her it's almost as strange and awkward as he always feared.  But he tells her and Eddie - she's sitting on his lap, and isn't that just an extra blow to his already damaged heart - that he's happy for them, and she smiles.  A nervous, shy smile, one that he hasn't ever seen on her face ever, but a smile all the same.  Eddie smiles at him too, but really he only has eyes for Iris.  Barry doesn't blame him, but deep down he really wishes he could.

(Even with super speed he's late to everything.  The irony of this isn't actually as funny as Cisco thinks it is.

Especially when he's late to the things that count.)

...

The defining aspect of a broken thing is that it doesn't work anymore.  This was just another reason why Barry Allen, with his logic and science and intellect, never understood the term "broken heart."  But maybe he was taking it too literally.  Maybe he hadn't realized his heart could be broken in other ways.

And maybe, he thinks to himself as he watches Joe put the angel on top of the tree.  Iris turns and catches his eye, smiling another one of those strange, nervous smiles.  He smiles back, as shy as he was around her when they first met.  It hurts, like someone just punched him in the gut, but at the same time relief blooms inside him.  Maybe...

(Maybe broken hearts can continue to beat.)


End file.
